Human machine interfaces (HMIs) in the form of graphical instruments or graphical gauges are found in many forms in many types of vehicles. One common type of HMI or graphical instrument includes a speedometer and is provided in a dashboard of a On-Road, Off-Road, or Marine vehicle. The graphical instrument may include more than one gauge, such as a speedometer and a tachometer, to convey gauge information to a vehicle operator. The graphical instrument may form all or a portion of a vehicle dash, such as the interface panel in front of the vehicle operator or a center console display.
In many conventional HMI implementations, the HMI construction is fully designed to meet the custom needs of an end customer. For instance, the HMI implementation may include several customized graphical gauges to provide vehicle status information, such as vehicle speed, engine speed, miles traveled, engine running hours, fuel level, engine status, HVAC status and control, generator status and control, and heated seat status and control. These customized graphical gauges are often supported by a native operating system configured to meet the custom needs of the end customer.
The requirements outlined by the end customer may include additional aspects not limited to vehicle status information, including, for instance, a navigation system, weather forecast, or a network-based audio system. Significant effort and expense is often dedicated to satisfy such customer requirements. For instance, developing a navigation system supported natively by the native operating system of the HMI may involve a significant number of man-hours to develop and debug, as well as licensing fees for maps and global positioning system (GPS) technology. In many cases, lower volumes associated with the conventional HMI construction place the HMI manufacturer in a weaker negotiation position with respect to licensing fees as opposed to higher volume navigations systems developed by manufacturers or developers (e.g., Garmin or Google Maps) that dedicate aspects of their business toward navigation systems. The higher volume navigations systems are most often available on mobile platforms being used by a significant number of users, including Android® and iOS® mobile platforms. These mobile platforms operate in a manner that prevents sharing of display resources or user feedback resources, or both, with other platforms, thereby substantially impeding co-operation with other systems, such as the native operating system of the HMI construction.